History: I was having issues with my 85 22RE overheating. It has 110K miles on it so I did timing chain kit from engbldr, new radiator, clutch, etc. Basically an entire front of motor rebuild. I was still having overheating after all of that (no white smoke, oil looked good) so I pulled the head and found gasket blown on #2 cylinder. I had the head milled (.008) and installed Victor Reinz head gasket. I ran a tap through the head bolt holes in the block to make sure they were good an clean. I have the factory service manual and followed torque sequence and put them at 58lbs using 3 passes like it says. I get it all back together and fire it up and now I have white smoke coming out the tailpipe. ARGH!! I did not have the block tested. Could the Victor Reinz head gasket be the issue? I am thinking about taking it all apart again and going with the Toyota head gasket to see if that takes care of it?

Thoughts?

 

I have always used the OEM head gasket. There is night and day difference between aftermarket and OEM. As far as redoing it goes, I would do a compression test first and make sure you have flushed your oil after a few running hours. Coolant can get into spaces its not supposed to be when you pull it apart. I had a truck that did the same thing. I parked it diretly after doing the HG and seeing it kinda milky colored. Couple months went by and I decided to flush the oil once more just to be sure. Sure enough it was just fine and all it needed was fresh oil.

 

After work I started it up and it's running clean as a whistle. It must have just been some water sitting somewhere that needed to evaporate. It runs so good now too. No more tail pipe condensation and the slight miss it has had for a long time at idle is now gone. Water temp is steady as well. I'm a happy camper for sure. I do hear a slight exhaust manifold leak that I need to track down but all in all a successful head gasket replacement.

 

Retorque the head bolts up to 65 fp. this is the latest spec. Then readjust the valve lash.

 

millball is spot on. I used an oem headgasket torqued to 65 ft/lbs and haven't done a re-torque. It's 5000 miles into the rebuild and seems to pull harder than ever, compression almost perfect (171psi across all cylinders except #3 is 168psi, good enough for me).

I'm glad I listened to the wisdom here and have no regrets torquing it to the higher spec.

 

Just curious where you heard that, debating popping my valve cover and going up to 65 since I just followed the FSM on mine. Is that for 22R or 22R-E or both?

 

I looked into it awhile back and it was directly from Toyota, due to a wave of early hg failures. First, they bumped the spec from 58 ft/lbs to 62? until they finally settled on 65 ft/lbs. Engnbldr and 22reperformance also both recommend this torque rating as well as a number of YT members who've built plenty of reliable 22r/re's.